Career-focused startup Zippia raises $8.5 million in Series A to artificial Intelligence to help job seekers

Zippia, a career-focused startup that is using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to match job seekers with employers, has raised $8.5 million in Series A to artificial Intelligence to continue to expand product development and reach new job Seekers. The new capital infusion was led by E.ventures, with participation from existing shareholders, including MHS Capital, NextView Ventures and Correlation Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, the company also announced that Thomas Gieselmann of E.ventures will be joining its Board of Directors. This latest round brings the total funding raised to $12 million.

Founded in 2015 by tech industry veteran Henry Shao and Chris Kolmar, the San Mateo, California-based coffers every person access to all of their career options and how those various paths will impact their professional lives. The two co-founders met while working at Shao’s previous company, Movoto. After Movoto was acquired by Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd., Shao and Kolmar left the company to found Zippia.

Zippia extracts intelligence from real world experiences to provide the best information and tools for people to achieve their career plans. Zippia’s goal is to empower people with the information and tools to achieve their career aspirations. By providing an intelligent and personalized resource for job seekers, we can help answer career questions, help people make better-informed career decisions, and help people achieve their career plans.

Zippia has over 1 million visitors per month, after growing exponentially over the last two years. In the past year, 6 million consumers and job seekers have visited Zippia to look for career information.

CEO and co-founder Henry Shao says, “I have personally hired hundreds of people throughout my career and realized that, quite often, they neither know much about their career options nor how to change or advance their career. While I try my best to mentor the people close to me, it was frustrating to know there are many underprivileged groups that don’t have access to mentors. I want to put all the available career information online so that we can help everyone achieve their career goals.”

“The internet can answer almost any question out there: how to build a house, how to buy a car or how to find love. But there is very little reliable guidance available online for choosing a career, despite it being one of the most important decisions of our lives. This is why we decided to build a platform that gives everybody the tools to find the career that is right for them.”

Shao says the funding will help scale Zippia to fulfill the needs of every career-related query. Examples include job seekers looking to change careers, people identifying the skills needed to advance in their career, people researching salary projections for different career pathways, or helping people know what it’s like to work at a specific job or company.

“We are excited to lead this funding round at Zippia,” said Thomas Gieselmann, co-founder and general partner of E.ventures. “With Zippia, candidates have access to a ‘report card’ that finally gives them complete data-driven transparency into how an employer has jump-started, progressed and supported their employees’ careers. Zippia also makes employer data transparent, so the best talent can flock to the best opportunities. Both job seekers and companies benefit.”